Daily Sports reported Monday that Nobuhiko Takada, acting as headquarters chief for former PRIDE parent company Dream Stage Entertainment, gave his consent to allow PRIDE lightweight champion Takanori Gomi to move to another organization. Western and Japanese fans alike have been anxiously awaiting the Shooto and PRIDE veteran’s return to the ring.

Takada said he wanted to see Gomi leave on good terms. “Gomi is a world-class athlete,” Takada said. “I want him to get all the motivation in the world to fight. I want him to show the strength of PRIDE.” With the PRIDE franchise in what Takada called a state of hibernation, Gomi’s appearance in another organization seemed inevitable. “It would be a waste to just let time go by for Gomi,” Takada said. “I asked him to show the world the true value of reviving PRIDE.”

So somehow DSE still has the ability to release fighters from their PRIDE contracts. I wasn’t privy to the secret details, but this seems like a repeat of how Josh Barnett managed to get out of his contract. Mind you I wouldn’t take this story at face value. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time writing this blog, it’s that Japanese people are all filthy liars, and they eat babies too.

Okay, maybe they don’t eat babies, and they’re probably cleaner than the average North American. But half the stuff printed in Daily Sports about MMA is still wrong or an outright lie. If this happens to be true though, I bet Dana White is so mad he’s shitting kittens.